Tip-Toe Through the Tulips

Day 103

I don’t know how many posts I’ve started out this way, but I’m gonna just come out and say it: I’m a very anxious person. Everything causes me anxiety, especially decisions, small and large. Even if I make a decision, and it’s a good one or the right one, I spend a week worrying that it was the wrong one.

These life choices I’ve been making over the past few weeks have made me anxious enough that it’s brought on a little depression. I spent Friday evening driving around the mountainside trying to get a little perspective of the world, and I just ended up feeling more lonely, somehow. I figured that maybe it was because the higher up into the mountains I went, the more snow there was. And as beautiful as snow may be, I’m over it. So the next day, I remembered someone at work saying they were going to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving point, and I decided to jump on the bandwagon and go as well, seeing as it was the last weekend.

Unfortunately, because I came so late in the season, some of the tulips were starting to wilt, and a lot of the other flowers (like the Asiatic lilies..) had already died. Asiatic lilies are one of my absolute favorites, so I was a little sad, but it still did not disappoint.

A short history lesson:

The Tulip Festival in Holland originated because a biology high school teacher (Lida Rogers) proposed the idea in 1927 of adopting the tulip as the national flower, and setting aside a day for a festival to plant tulips. In 1928, 100,000 tulip bulbs were imported from the Netherlands, and locals were encouraged to purchase bulbs at one cent a piece, and plant them in their yards. The next year, all of the tulips bloomed and Holland invited tourists to come and look at them. It then became an annual event, and by the mid 1930s, it was a nationally known event. Ever since then, other places have been incorporating the tulip festival (such as Ottowa, Canada, Michigan, New York, Washington state, and Thanksgiving Point in Utah). However, most people don’t know that the tulip’s original cultivation started in Persia around the 10th century and was later introduced to the western world.

The more you know (:

Someone complained that I don’t post enough pictures of myself. So here you go. (I hate pics of myself).

Also, there’s a pond where you can feed Koi fish.

If you have bad allergies, like I do, wait until the end of the season to go. At the beginning, there is more pollination between the plants, and it’s almost unbearable. I made it almost two hours before my eyes started to become itchy yesterday. MUCH better than the last time I went. But also remember to take your allergy meds before going (: